From Publishers Weekly
Visual artist and recent alt-porn star Smith—known in the adult film world as Zak Sabbath—takes readers on a frenetic journey from the New York art scene to pornography-saturated Los Angeles. Interspersed with his drawings, which have been displayed at MoMA and the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Smith's memoir is more a series of linked vignettes than a chronological account of his foray into alt-porn. As distinct from mainstream hardcore porn, alt-porn tries to do with sex the kinds of things ambitious young filmmakers might try to do after graduating from art school. It was Smith's collection of illustrations for Thomas Pynchon's
Gravity's Rainbow that first attracted the attention of pirate porn director Osbie Feel. As Smith puts it, I ended up in porn because one day I sat down and decided to draw one picture for every page of a very thick book no one I knew had read. In addition to attending the Porn Film Festival Berlin and the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas—and having sex with countless women with names like Tina DiVine and Trixie Kyle in countless warehouse sets—Smith is also a cultural critic, dissecting everything from Valentine's Day to the grammar in antipornography laws. Just as porn, alternative or otherwise, has its fans, Smith's memoir is an acquired taste and will appeal to those who like things a little kinky.
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Review
"Intelligent, frank and often hilarious meditation on the author's dual career...The pleasure in this book comes not from living through the author's atypical experience, but in being taken deeper into areas of thought commonly perceived as taboo—a wild, entirely worthwhile ride." ."—Kirkus Reviews
"Smith’s take on the industry is vivid and insightful, including observations on people, politics and American culture—the push-and-pull between the Right and those who want the right to screw."—Kirkus Reviews, Nonfiction Supplement
"Will appeal to those who like things a little kinky."—Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating synthesis of words and art..."—LibraryJournal.com
"An intelligent, funny, and self-aware reminder that intelligent, funny, and self-aware people do in fact choose to work in the porn industry...It is all incredibly interesting and entertaining."—Alison Hallett, The Portland Mercury
"The subject matter — combined with his clever imagery — couldn’t help but keep it fascinating... It reminded me of David Foster Wallace’s hilarious, equally dense essay “Big Red Son”...Smith and Wallace have similarly breathless, heady writing styles and We Did Porn could easily serve as a porn insider’s compliment to Wallace’s journalistic-outsider perspective."—Alex Peterson, Willamette Week Online
"Artist Zak Smith injects some life into the moribund genre of the memoir with this thoughtful and hilarious look into the alt-porn industry." —Drew Toal, Time Out New York
"Wildly entertaining." —Fleshbot
"...a page-turner...a genuinely enjoyable read..." —Audacia Ray, author of Naked on the Internet
"Alongside 'fine artist and 'porn star' on Zak Smith's unique resume, you can now add the phrase 'entertaining and resourceful writer'...[We Did Porn] is exhaustive, perceptive, empathic, and very funny."—John Bolster, Penthouse
"...reads not unlike a George Plimpton-style adventure in immersive investigation, as the artist chronicles his adventures in front of the camera as eager rookie Zak Sabbath, with words, pictures, self-awareness, and dark humor." —Shana Nys Dambrot, Flavorpill
"...Smith is an outrageously talented observer, which makes his writing almost as arresting as his images, which are superb. Smith's detailed descriptions of 'life in the zeros' both on and off the set make We did Porn a fascinating x-rates documents of a cynical age." —Jim Ruland, Girls Gone Wild Magazine
"...combines words and images, mixing memoir with gorgeous paintings...Smith's art is exquisite, intensely drawn with splashes of electric colors, sharp lines and energy throbbing in every complex detail...We Did Porn is an excellent book and Zak Smith is an incredibly interesting artist and writer."—Alyssa Bianca-Pavley, Fanzine.com
"The many crosscurrents in Smith's works are fun, but more compelling is the fact that Smith does not seem so much involved in critique as something else from literary post-modernism—he's leapt into his own work as a character...Smith seems headed towards the historiographic, creatively narrating an alternative history, in this case, of a very recent past moment, from what might be perceived as the center of our authentic cultural life." —Joe Fyfe, Artnet.com
"Smith's 'artwork is impeccable. There is tenderness, daring, heat in his pieces. With a Nan Goldin compassion, he captures an intimacy that is often lacking in the movies he and his comrades make.'"—The San Francisco Bay Guardian
"This book is beautiful and complicated and riveting... I think there's no doubt that Zak Smith has genius, or that thing that we think of as genius that is really just the urge to get up every morning and spend long hours struggling with art." —Stephen Elliott, The Rumpus
